Nationalism, Patriotism Quotes

“A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and a common fear of its neighbors.” W. R. Inge
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“My kind of loyalty was to one’s country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death.” Mark Twain
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“Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage—torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians—which does not change its moral color when it is committed by ‘our’ side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” George Orwell
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“Politically speaking, tribal nationalism always insists that its own people are surrounded by ‘a world of enemies’, ‘one against all’, that a fundamental difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique, individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man.” Hannah Arendt, from her book The Origins Of Totalitarianism p.227
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“Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill.” R. Aldington
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“To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography.” George Santayana
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“The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.” H.L. Mencken
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“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.” George Bernard Shaw
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“There is almost no kind of outrage—torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians—which does not change its moral color when it is committed by ‘our’ side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” George Orwell
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“Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.” George Washington (1732-1799) Founding Father, 1st US President, “Father of the Country” -Source: Farewell Address, September 17, 1796, Ref: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (521)
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“Let those who would die for the flag on the field of battle give a better proof of their patriotism and a higher glory to their country by promoting fraternity and justice.” Benjamin Harrison, Inaugural Address, 1889
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“Do not regard the critics as questionable patriots. What were Washington and Jefferson and Adams but profound critics of the colonial status quo?” Adlai Stevenson
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“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular.” Edward R. Murrow
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“You do not become a ‘dissident’ just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society.” Vaclav Havel
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“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” George Washington
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“If the author of the Declaration of Independence were to utter such a sentiment today, the Post Office Department could exclude him from the mail, grand juries could indict him for sedition and criminal syndicalism, legislative committees could seize his private papers and United States Senators would be clamoring for his deportation that he should be sent back to live with the rest of the terrorists.” Frank I. Cobb
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“One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence.” Charles A. Beard
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“Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong.” James Bryce
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“Let those who would die for the flag on the field of battle give a better proof of their patriotism and a higher glory to their country by promoting fraternity and justice.” Benjamin Harrison, Inaugural Address, 1889
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“Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The interests, rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury.” William Lloyd Garrison, Declaration of Sentiments, Boston Peace Conference, 1838
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“It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.” Samuel Adams (1722-1803), was known as the “Father of the American Revolution.”
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"It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars" Arthur C. Clarke
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"A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle": George William Curtis
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"Flags are bits of colored cloth used first to shrinkwrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead." Arundhati Roy
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"You see, when a nation threatens another nation the people of the latter forget their factionalism, their local antagonisms, their political differences, their suspicions of each other, their religious hostilities, and band together as one unit. Leaders know that, and that is why so many of them whip up wars during periods of national crisis, or when the people become discontented and angry. The leaders stigmatize the enemy with every vice they can think of, every evil and human depravity. They stimulate their people's natural fear of all other men by channeling it into a defined fear of just certain men, or nations. Attacking another nation, then, acts as a sort of catharsis, temporarily, on men's fear of their immediate neighbors. This is the explanation of all wars, all racial and religious hatreds, all massacres, and all attempts at genocide." Taylor Caldwell, "The Devil's Advocate" (1952) - pg. 299
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"There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience." - Hartley Shawcross - (1902-2003), prosecutor at Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal